B+

With the crude market on tenterhooks since API reported a huge surge in inventories (especially at Cushing), DOE reported a considerable 4.2mm barrel build (less than API's 6.3mm) but way above analyst expectations of a modest draw (7th week in a row). Cushing saw a very significant 2.24mm barrel build (API 2.5mm). Crude Production also rose near 3mo highs, putting firther pressure on crude prices which are whipsawing wildly on this data...

Just when you thought it couldn't get any worse - amid supply gluts, production surges, market share scrambles, and demand disappointment - it does. OPEC this morning confirmed not only no change in the already weak global demand picture but the current oil inventrory surplus is the largest in at least a decade. This has driven WTI prices down close to a $41 handle this morning (from over $48 a week ago) as simply put, there's too much oil and OPEC's grand strategy for solving this imbalance - pray for a colder winter...

Social Security has long been sold to the public on the notion that what a worker will receive back is what he or she pays into the system. For decades, however, the government has been changing the terms of this "agreement" as part of an effort to avoid outright default, hiding it, instead, with a long, slow method of piecemeal default.

Watching Hilary Clinton debate Bernie Sanders- or like lastnight, Jeb Bush against Donald Trump - doesn’t strike us as too different from when Hulk Hogan faced off against Andre the Giant in Wrestlemania. In fact, it’s essentially the same with elections today, it's "political entertainment." It’s all fake. It’s sound bites, jabs and jibes, and pointless banter completely devoid of any real substance. But the truth is, none of it really matters, the United States objectively speaking is far past the point of no return.

"As we progressed through the quarter, conditions softened. And September was especially weak, particularly in the U.S. product businesses....September typically is the strongest month of the year... There appears to be a general slowdown in U.S. industrial customer spending, both capital and operating spending.... we're not expecting to see sequential growth until the second half of the year (2016)"

- Keith Norbusch, ROK CEO

Goldman Sachs -> Treasury -> PIMCO -> The Fed

Late last week, a consortium of financial regulators in the United States, including the Federal Reserve and the FDIC, issued an astonishing condemnation of the US banking system, highlighting “continuing gaps between industry practices and the expectations for safe and sound banking.” They identified a huge jump in risky loans due to overexposure to weakening oil and gas industries. Make no mistake; this is not chump change. The total exceeds $3.9 trillion worth of risky loans that US banks made with your money. Given that even the Fed is concerned about this, alarm bells should be ringing.

Repeated dosages of quantitative easing to kick-start economic recovery have proved totally ineffective everywhere. Yet central bankers are talking about doing it again – in larger amounts. The obsession with spending rather than saving has led governments everywhere to suppress interest rates to near zero. Under this destructive economic model governments are the worst offenders. In their craze to spend cheap money they allocate resources blindly into projects of dubious viability, for which there was no public demand in the first place. Result: huge taxpayer-borne losses.

We're gonna need a bigger buyback... As if "old tech" IBM was not in enough trouble, the worrying admission from Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway's earnings of around $2 billion (though careful to note he is not about to sell) has seemingly prompted further weakness. IBM is down almost 2% to fresh May 2010 lows...

Last week, we asked if silver would have a 14 handle again. This week, the market answered yes we can! How did we know? By looking at supply and demand.

Why - after commodities - China is set to change the landscape on energy in the coming years

Perhaps realizing that another wave of social unrest and failure to obtain creditor cash may well lead to a violent social upheaval, Tsipras seems to be contemplating a Plan B, one which would see Greece accept thousands of refugees destined for Europe in exchange for getting the earmarked cash without any reform.

In the last 24 months, Canada, New Zealand, the US, the UK, and now Germany have all implemented legislation that would allow them to first FREEZE and then SEIZE bank assets during the next crisis.

This time is always different just before a bone-crushing decline.